EyeInTheSky
Veteran
It's funny how many pilots are Republicans. Something about Jesus as their co-pilot, whatever that means.
Edwards Vp
- Thread starter aerosmith
- Start date
NeedForSpeedNFS
Veteran
- Mar 12, 2004
- 517
- 0
Not trying to convince anyone pitbull, that was my OPINION. I'm sure your aware of the meaning of that word!! Besides, I did not even mention Bush, but being that YOU brought it up, are you aware what Edwards' approval rating is in his home state of, Nooorth Caaroolina???? 38%!!!!!!!! He is one of those Bad, mean VERY FILTHY RICH..................Repub, OH WAIT, Damn, he IS a Democrat!!!! Oh, but, he is for the "comman" man........ What a joke!!! And mindless people from the "OLD union mentality" fall for these fools ALL THE TIME. You just cannot look at the issues with some true foresight instead of just Dems vs Republicans! What a shame, FRIEND!! GOOD DAY!!!!!!PITbull said:NFS,
Who you trying to convince? Us? or YOU?
The Bush Administration is OUT THE DOOR, friend!
NeedForSpeedNFS
Veteran
- Mar 12, 2004
- 517
- 0
Now pitbull, your taking things personally, was not directed at you, WAS directed at a lot of the posts here, thats all, RELAX a little, its good for the mindPITbull said:
NeedForSpeedNFS
Veteran
- Mar 12, 2004
- 517
- 0
LOL, your too much!!!PITbull said:Just came back from a "pool party" tonight in Hopewell.
Hit the juice a bit and feeling good...
Kerry Purple Heart Doc Speaks Out700UW said:
By Byron York -- www.nationalreview.com May 4, 2004
It is hard to believe that John Kerry would apply for a Purple Heart with such a minor wound, others have lost arms, legs and are disabled for life and Kerry has the gall to run to a doctor in hopes of getting a Purple Heart.
It worked – he got it
In his ads, he never fails to mention his Vietnam heroics. Shooting and killing an enemy lying on the ground, half dead, is not heroic in my book, nor is burning villages and killing women and children. Kerry even admits to these atrocities and still he glorifies his war efforts, when he should be trying to hide them.
The most honorable thing he did was to pull one of his own men out of the water into the boat. How could he not, he was the skipper? Would anyone just run and leave him? For this deed, which anyone would do, Kerry is making the most of it, as the man he pulled out is in one of his ads, saying what a great hero Kerry is. Wow! This is the extent of Kerry's heroism?
If only people knew the truth.
Frank Joseph MD
This is what Purple Hearts are given for?
By Byron York
Some critics of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have questioned the circumstances surrounding the first of three Purple Hearts Kerry won in Vietnam. Those critics, among them some of Kerry's fellow veterans, have suggested that a wound suffered by Kerry in December 1968 may have made him technically eligible for a Purple Heart but was not severe enough to warrant serious consideration, even for a decoration that was handed out by the thousands. Whatever the case, Kerry was awarded the Purple Heart, and, along with two others he won later, it allowed him to request to leave Vietnam before his tour of duty was finished.
Kerry was treated for the wound at a medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor who treated Kerry, Louis Letson, is today a retired general practitioner in Alabama. Letson says he remembers his brief encounter with Kerry 35 years ago because "some of his crewmen related that Lt. Kerry had told them that he would be the next JFK from Massachusetts." Letson says that last year, as the Democratic campaign began to heat up, he told friends that he remembered treating one of the candidates many years ago. In response to their questions, Letson says, he wrote down his recollections of the time. (Letson says he has had no contacts with anyone from the Bush campaign or the Republican party.) What follows is Letson's memory, as he wrote it.
I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.
John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.
The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.
Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.
That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.
What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.
I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.
The wound was covered with a bandaid.
Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.
www.nationalreview.com/york/york200405041626.asp
Courtesy Henry Makow Ph.D.
Unaware that he has been observed, Kerry watches from the sidelines during a debate recently
- Banned
- #115
Bottom Gun: Presidential Draft Dodger George W. Bush
BUZZFLASH SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY
By James C. Moore, co-author of "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W.Bush Presidential"
President George W. Bush is a draft dodger. And his cowardice is the worst kind. Mr. Bush avoided both combat and making any kind of political statement on the War in Vietnam. While others served, giving their lives and limbs, or took part in a protest movement to end the war, the president's family connections got him a safe spot in the Texas Air National Guard. This is not the profile of a leader.
In 1994, during his first run for Governor of Texas, I was a panelist on a televised debate between Mr. Bush and Ann Richards. I was the first person in his life to ask him how he got into the National Guard so easily when there were more than 100,000 young men on waiting lists around the country. Mr. Bush said there was a shortage of pilots and he was willing to make the six year training commitment that others were not.
That is not true. There was no shortage. And when he got one of the coveted spots, Mr. Bush failed to honor his commitment.
Sgt. Donald Barnhart of the Texas Guard said there was a waiting list of 150 names for Bush's unit and a minimum of 18 months passed before an applicant was moved to the top. Historian for the Texas Air National Guard, Tom Hall, reported Bush's Houston air wing was authorized for 29 pilots and had 27. But two replacements were already in training and another pilot was awaiting transfer. There was no shortage.
But there were family connections.
In a deposition for an unrelated lawsuit, former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes said he took a call from Bush family friend Sid Adger, a Houston businessman, asking for the favor of moving Bush up on the Guard's waiting list. Barnes said he called General James Rose, commanding officer of the Guard, and the request was granted. Adger was one of former President Bush's oldest and closest friends. A spokesman said the first President Bush "loved" Mr. Adger.
The son of then Congressman George H. W. Bush joined an Air Guard unit at
Ellington Air Force Base where he served with the son of U.S. Senator John Tower and Lloyd Bentsen III, also a Texas senator's son.
Immediately after basic training, Bush got a direct appointment to Second Lieutenant, circumventing a rigorous qualification process, which normally involved Officer Candidate School. Charles Shoemake, who retired from the Texas Guard as a full colonel, said such appointments were rare, hard to get, and required extensive credentials. "I went from master sergeant to first lieutenant based on my three years in college and 15 years as a non-commissioned officer," he said. "Then I got considered for a direct appointment."
During his answer to my debate question in 1994, Mr. Bush said he could have been called up for duty in Vietnam. He had to know that was not true, either. On his Guard application, the future president checked a box saying he did "not" want to be considered for overseas deployment. Additionally, he was hundreds of hours short of flight time required for foreign duty, and the aircraft he flew, the F-102 was no longer being used in Southeast Asia.
After being rejected once, Mr. Bush reapplied and was granted a transfer to a Guard unit in Montgomery, Alabama. But he never showed up for duty. Instead, he spent his days working on a U.S. Senate campaign for a family friend. During his own presidential campaign, Mr. Bush's staff showed reporters a tattered piece of paper, missing a last name, as proof he reported for duty in Alabama. But both the CO of the Alabama unit, and his administrative officer, said they have no record or memory of Mr. Bush showing up. Not one of the approximately 700 men in the Alabama unit has ever stepped forward to say they remember Mr. Bush serving with them.
"Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," Commander William Turnipseed said. "If we had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
Nonetheless, Mr. Bush maintained his flight status until 1972, when he failed to show up for a required physical. His campaign initially said he did not return to Houston because his family physician was unavailable to conduct the physical. When it was made clear such exams are given by military doctors, the campaign then explained that Mr. Bush did not take the physical because he had "decided" he would no longer fly. This is a unique approach to military service when the enlistee gets to "decide" his future duties.
The year Mr. Bush skipped his physical, 1972, was also the first year the Guard began to institute random drug testing procedures.
Mr. Bush was grounded, his flight status revoked, and a punishment order was signed posting him to civilian duty in Denver. No evidence has ever been presented that he showed up there, either.
As the presidential campaign planning began in Texas, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett of the Texas Guard said he overheard orders from the Governor's office to "scrub" Mr. Bush's records. Burkett said he listened as Joe Allbaugh and Dan Bartlett, both of whom went to Washington with the president, told Major General Daniel James, commander of the Texas Guard, to "make sure there is nothing embarrassing in the governor's file." Burkett, who was chief advisor to General James, also said he was present when the records were surrendered for scrubbing.
After he took office, Commander in Chief George W. Bush promoted Daniel James to CO of the U.S. National Guard in Washington.
And now, by stepping into a flight uniform and appearing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the president has insulted the men and women who served honorably in Iraq, and the more than 58 thousand heroes whose names are etched into black granite in Washington, and the surviving Vietnam Vets.
Since Mr. Bush seems oblivious, perhaps it is our duty, as citizens, to be ashamed for him. We are also obligated to ask, "Who fought in your place, Mr. President?"
BUZZFLASH SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY
By James C. Moore, co-author of "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W.Bush Presidential"
President George W. Bush is a draft dodger. And his cowardice is the worst kind. Mr. Bush avoided both combat and making any kind of political statement on the War in Vietnam. While others served, giving their lives and limbs, or took part in a protest movement to end the war, the president's family connections got him a safe spot in the Texas Air National Guard. This is not the profile of a leader.
In 1994, during his first run for Governor of Texas, I was a panelist on a televised debate between Mr. Bush and Ann Richards. I was the first person in his life to ask him how he got into the National Guard so easily when there were more than 100,000 young men on waiting lists around the country. Mr. Bush said there was a shortage of pilots and he was willing to make the six year training commitment that others were not.
That is not true. There was no shortage. And when he got one of the coveted spots, Mr. Bush failed to honor his commitment.
Sgt. Donald Barnhart of the Texas Guard said there was a waiting list of 150 names for Bush's unit and a minimum of 18 months passed before an applicant was moved to the top. Historian for the Texas Air National Guard, Tom Hall, reported Bush's Houston air wing was authorized for 29 pilots and had 27. But two replacements were already in training and another pilot was awaiting transfer. There was no shortage.
But there were family connections.
In a deposition for an unrelated lawsuit, former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes said he took a call from Bush family friend Sid Adger, a Houston businessman, asking for the favor of moving Bush up on the Guard's waiting list. Barnes said he called General James Rose, commanding officer of the Guard, and the request was granted. Adger was one of former President Bush's oldest and closest friends. A spokesman said the first President Bush "loved" Mr. Adger.
The son of then Congressman George H. W. Bush joined an Air Guard unit at
Ellington Air Force Base where he served with the son of U.S. Senator John Tower and Lloyd Bentsen III, also a Texas senator's son.
Immediately after basic training, Bush got a direct appointment to Second Lieutenant, circumventing a rigorous qualification process, which normally involved Officer Candidate School. Charles Shoemake, who retired from the Texas Guard as a full colonel, said such appointments were rare, hard to get, and required extensive credentials. "I went from master sergeant to first lieutenant based on my three years in college and 15 years as a non-commissioned officer," he said. "Then I got considered for a direct appointment."
During his answer to my debate question in 1994, Mr. Bush said he could have been called up for duty in Vietnam. He had to know that was not true, either. On his Guard application, the future president checked a box saying he did "not" want to be considered for overseas deployment. Additionally, he was hundreds of hours short of flight time required for foreign duty, and the aircraft he flew, the F-102 was no longer being used in Southeast Asia.
After being rejected once, Mr. Bush reapplied and was granted a transfer to a Guard unit in Montgomery, Alabama. But he never showed up for duty. Instead, he spent his days working on a U.S. Senate campaign for a family friend. During his own presidential campaign, Mr. Bush's staff showed reporters a tattered piece of paper, missing a last name, as proof he reported for duty in Alabama. But both the CO of the Alabama unit, and his administrative officer, said they have no record or memory of Mr. Bush showing up. Not one of the approximately 700 men in the Alabama unit has ever stepped forward to say they remember Mr. Bush serving with them.
"Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," Commander William Turnipseed said. "If we had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
Nonetheless, Mr. Bush maintained his flight status until 1972, when he failed to show up for a required physical. His campaign initially said he did not return to Houston because his family physician was unavailable to conduct the physical. When it was made clear such exams are given by military doctors, the campaign then explained that Mr. Bush did not take the physical because he had "decided" he would no longer fly. This is a unique approach to military service when the enlistee gets to "decide" his future duties.
The year Mr. Bush skipped his physical, 1972, was also the first year the Guard began to institute random drug testing procedures.
Mr. Bush was grounded, his flight status revoked, and a punishment order was signed posting him to civilian duty in Denver. No evidence has ever been presented that he showed up there, either.
As the presidential campaign planning began in Texas, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett of the Texas Guard said he overheard orders from the Governor's office to "scrub" Mr. Bush's records. Burkett said he listened as Joe Allbaugh and Dan Bartlett, both of whom went to Washington with the president, told Major General Daniel James, commander of the Texas Guard, to "make sure there is nothing embarrassing in the governor's file." Burkett, who was chief advisor to General James, also said he was present when the records were surrendered for scrubbing.
After he took office, Commander in Chief George W. Bush promoted Daniel James to CO of the U.S. National Guard in Washington.
And now, by stepping into a flight uniform and appearing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the president has insulted the men and women who served honorably in Iraq, and the more than 58 thousand heroes whose names are etched into black granite in Washington, and the surviving Vietnam Vets.
Since Mr. Bush seems oblivious, perhaps it is our duty, as citizens, to be ashamed for him. We are also obligated to ask, "Who fought in your place, Mr. President?"
- Banned
- #116
BUSH A NO-SHOW AT ALABAMA BASE, SAYS MEMPHIAN
FedEx Pilot Bob Mintz, backed up by a Carolina colleague, recalls no Dubya at Dannelly AFB in 1972.
JACKSON BAKER | 2/13/2004
Print this Article
Copyright 2004 The Memphis Flyer
SEE UPDATE -- "ON GUARD -- OR AWOL?" CLICK HERE OR GO TO http://www.memphisflyer.com/ADMIN/dailydos...=EDIT&ID=2837.)
MEMPHIS – Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain.
The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, Alabama – or the lack of it – has become an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.†But, says Mintz, that “somebody†-- better known to the world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.
“And I was looking for him,†repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere else†to do his substitute drill. It was not “somewhere else,†however, but the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular Texas unit – the reason being Bush’s wish to work in Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount.
It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during the 2000 presidential campaign, as the place where Bush completed his military obligation. And it is the 187th that the White House continues to contend that Bush belonged to – as recently as this week, when presidential spokesman Scott McClellan released payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that Bush’s dental records might be on file at Dannelly.
“There’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him,†insists Mintz, who has pored over documents relating to the matter now making their way around the Internet. One of these is a piece of correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning Bush’s redeployment.
Mintz remembers a good deal of base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter, which clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It couldn’t be anybody else. No one ever did that again, as far as I know.†In any case, he is certain that nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested such a transfer into Dannelly.
Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a negative reaction†to what he sees as out-and-out dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do that as an officer, you don’t do that as a pilot, you don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.â€
Though some accounts reckon the total personnel component of the 187th as consisting of several hundred, the actual flying squadron – that to which Bush was reassigned – numbered only “25 to 30 pilots,†Mintz said. “There’s no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever.†Even if Bush, who was trained on a slightly different aircraft than the F4 Phantom jets flown by the squadron, opted not to fly with the unit, he would have had to encounter the rest of the flying personnel at some point, in non-flying formations or drills. “And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would have involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him.
“I talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said, ‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t there. And he wasn’t at the Pit, either.’â€
The “Pit†was The Snake Pit, a nearby bistro where the squadron’s pilots would gather for frequent after-hours revelry. And the buddy was Bishop, then a lieutenant at Dannelly and now a pilot for Kalitta, a charter airline that in recent months has been flying war materiel into the Iraq Theater of Operations.
“I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush,†confirms Bishop, who now lives in Goldsboro, N.C., is a veteran of Gulf War I and, as a Kalitta pilot, has himself flown frequent supply missions into military facilities at Kuwait. "In fact," he quips, mindful of the current political frame of reference, "I saw more of Al Sharpton at the base than I did of George W. Bush."
Bishop voted for Bush in 2000 and believes that the Iraq war has served some useful purposes – citing, as the White House does, disarmament actions since pursued by Libyan president Moammar Khadaffi – but he is disgruntled both about aspects of the war and about what he sees as Bush’s lack of truthfulness about his military record.
“I think a commander-in-chief who sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has seen the sting of battle,†Bishop says. “In Iraq: we have a bunch of great soldiers, but they are not policemen. I don’t think he [the president] was well advised; right now it’s costing us an American life a day. I’m not a peacenik, but what really bothers me is that of the 500 or so that we’ve lost almost 80 of them were reservists. We’ve got an over-extended Guard and reserve.â€
Part of the problem, Bishop thinks, is a disconnect resulting from the president’s own inexperience with combat operations. And he is well beyond annoyed at the White House’s persistent claims that Bush did indeed serve time at Dannelly. Bishop didn’t pay much attention to the claim when candidate Bush first offered it in 2000. But he did after the second Iraq war started and the issue came front and center.
“It bothered me that he wouldn’t ‘fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn’t have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country.â€
Like his old comrade Mintz, Bishop, now 65, was a pilot for Eastern Airlines during their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly. Mintz then lived in Montgomery; Bishop commuted from Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop retired from the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel, respectively.
Bishop, especially, is bitter about the fate of Eastern, which went bankrupt during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the current incumbent’s father. “I watched my company dissolve under his policies.†Both Bushes were “children of privilege,†unlike himself and Mintz.
“Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would not have been given the same considerations he and his father were,†says Bishop, who maintains that, just as the junior Bush used family and political influence to jump himself ahead of 500 other flight training applicants, the senior Bush "apparently" did, too, when he became a naval aviator during World War Two. “I applaud him for volunteering, but he should have waited his turn like everybody else.â€
But, says Bishop, “At least I can give him credit for serving his country.†That is more, he suggested, than can be granted the younger Bush.
Would he consider voting for the president’s reelection? “Naw, this goes to an integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John] Edwards better.†And who would Mintz be voting for? “Not for any Texas politicians,†was the Memphian’s sardonic answer. See also:
FedEx Pilot Bob Mintz, backed up by a Carolina colleague, recalls no Dubya at Dannelly AFB in 1972.
JACKSON BAKER | 2/13/2004
Print this Article
Copyright 2004 The Memphis Flyer
SEE UPDATE -- "ON GUARD -- OR AWOL?" CLICK HERE OR GO TO http://www.memphisflyer.com/ADMIN/dailydos...=EDIT&ID=2837.)
MEMPHIS – Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain.
The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, Alabama – or the lack of it – has become an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.†But, says Mintz, that “somebody†-- better known to the world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.
“And I was looking for him,†repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere else†to do his substitute drill. It was not “somewhere else,†however, but the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular Texas unit – the reason being Bush’s wish to work in Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount.
It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during the 2000 presidential campaign, as the place where Bush completed his military obligation. And it is the 187th that the White House continues to contend that Bush belonged to – as recently as this week, when presidential spokesman Scott McClellan released payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that Bush’s dental records might be on file at Dannelly.
“There’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him,†insists Mintz, who has pored over documents relating to the matter now making their way around the Internet. One of these is a piece of correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning Bush’s redeployment.
Mintz remembers a good deal of base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter, which clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It couldn’t be anybody else. No one ever did that again, as far as I know.†In any case, he is certain that nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested such a transfer into Dannelly.
Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a negative reaction†to what he sees as out-and-out dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do that as an officer, you don’t do that as a pilot, you don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.â€
Though some accounts reckon the total personnel component of the 187th as consisting of several hundred, the actual flying squadron – that to which Bush was reassigned – numbered only “25 to 30 pilots,†Mintz said. “There’s no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever.†Even if Bush, who was trained on a slightly different aircraft than the F4 Phantom jets flown by the squadron, opted not to fly with the unit, he would have had to encounter the rest of the flying personnel at some point, in non-flying formations or drills. “And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would have involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him.
“I talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said, ‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t there. And he wasn’t at the Pit, either.’â€
The “Pit†was The Snake Pit, a nearby bistro where the squadron’s pilots would gather for frequent after-hours revelry. And the buddy was Bishop, then a lieutenant at Dannelly and now a pilot for Kalitta, a charter airline that in recent months has been flying war materiel into the Iraq Theater of Operations.
“I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush,†confirms Bishop, who now lives in Goldsboro, N.C., is a veteran of Gulf War I and, as a Kalitta pilot, has himself flown frequent supply missions into military facilities at Kuwait. "In fact," he quips, mindful of the current political frame of reference, "I saw more of Al Sharpton at the base than I did of George W. Bush."
Bishop voted for Bush in 2000 and believes that the Iraq war has served some useful purposes – citing, as the White House does, disarmament actions since pursued by Libyan president Moammar Khadaffi – but he is disgruntled both about aspects of the war and about what he sees as Bush’s lack of truthfulness about his military record.
“I think a commander-in-chief who sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has seen the sting of battle,†Bishop says. “In Iraq: we have a bunch of great soldiers, but they are not policemen. I don’t think he [the president] was well advised; right now it’s costing us an American life a day. I’m not a peacenik, but what really bothers me is that of the 500 or so that we’ve lost almost 80 of them were reservists. We’ve got an over-extended Guard and reserve.â€
Part of the problem, Bishop thinks, is a disconnect resulting from the president’s own inexperience with combat operations. And he is well beyond annoyed at the White House’s persistent claims that Bush did indeed serve time at Dannelly. Bishop didn’t pay much attention to the claim when candidate Bush first offered it in 2000. But he did after the second Iraq war started and the issue came front and center.
“It bothered me that he wouldn’t ‘fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn’t have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country.â€
Like his old comrade Mintz, Bishop, now 65, was a pilot for Eastern Airlines during their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly. Mintz then lived in Montgomery; Bishop commuted from Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop retired from the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel, respectively.
Bishop, especially, is bitter about the fate of Eastern, which went bankrupt during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the current incumbent’s father. “I watched my company dissolve under his policies.†Both Bushes were “children of privilege,†unlike himself and Mintz.
“Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would not have been given the same considerations he and his father were,†says Bishop, who maintains that, just as the junior Bush used family and political influence to jump himself ahead of 500 other flight training applicants, the senior Bush "apparently" did, too, when he became a naval aviator during World War Two. “I applaud him for volunteering, but he should have waited his turn like everybody else.â€
But, says Bishop, “At least I can give him credit for serving his country.†That is more, he suggested, than can be granted the younger Bush.
Would he consider voting for the president’s reelection? “Naw, this goes to an integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John] Edwards better.†And who would Mintz be voting for? “Not for any Texas politicians,†was the Memphian’s sardonic answer. See also:
